


It Hurts (To Be In Love With Lightning)

by noseriouslythisis



Series: Struck by Lightning, Drowned by Thunder [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, Stickhandling 101
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 14:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11083080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noseriouslythisis/pseuds/noseriouslythisis
Summary: Once upon a time, they were one. Now, all that's left are strangers picking up the pieces.





	It Hurts (To Be In Love With Lightning)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I listened to [Strangers by Halsey ft. Lauren Jauregi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3hjpNuvapQ) on repeat and talked to my lovely beta R [F1DEL1US](https://archiveofourown.org/users/F1DEL1US/pseuds/F1DEL1US) and then this happened.  
> Have fun, listen to the song while reading this, it's wonderful.

 

Strangers. That what Jo had said. Nate wanted to scream, and maybe punch something. It was a feeling he had become intimately acquainted with these last couple years. The show was supposed to be the best thing to ever happen to the both of them. 

And it was, for Nate. But it hadn’t been as kind to Jo. And therein lay the problem. Their juniors  _ fling _ (god, he hated that word) had crumbled and shattered and self destructed after the draft. Any promises made were forgotten and Jo went further and further out of Nate’s reach.

 

_ She doesn't call me on the phone anymore _

_ She's never listening, she says it's innocent _

 

Going back to juniors was one thing. They could deal with that, and Jo still let them be close, kind of. But the whole Tampa Bay debacle, with Jo not reporting to the crunch… 

He hadn’t even told Nate. Didn’t even indicate that things had gotten this bad. Then again, they hadn’t had a proper conversation in months by that point.  _ Fuck. _

 

_   I must have crossed a line, _

_ I must have lost my mind _

 

Nate was happy, he was, he was, he was in the NHL, he was doing well even his team wasn’t. They were worried about him, he knew. Saw how seeing Jo weighed on him when they played Tampa, how it had been even worse when Jo  _ wasn’t  _ in the line-up. 

He couldn’t stay away. They still met up, when they played each other. They’d get dinner, filled with superficial pleasantries, asking after family and mutual friends, a farce of the symbiotic relationship they’d once had. 

And then, inevitably, unfailingly, they’d go to the hotel room of whoever was visiting (not home, never home, not since the first time after the draft) and they’d fuck. Fast, and hard, and painful in the way it was when it was too good. 

 

_ Said that we're not lovers, we're just strangers _

_ With the same damn hunger _

_ To be touched, to be loved, to feel anything at all _

 

They never stayed the night. And afterwards, Nate wanted to destroy something, claw at his own heart, rip it out, throw it onto the ice at Jo’s feet and be done with it. Every time. And yet, every time, he came back. He didn’t know how not to. 

Nate didn’t know what had happened to make them this way. Scratch that. He was more self aware than Jo gave him credit for, more self aware than Jo ever had been, always just on this side denial. The draft had pushed him over. 

They had been happy, once upon a time. They were young, and stupid, and so carefree. Back in juniors, no one looked twice at hockey bros who were just a little too close, a little too codependent. It was just how they were. 

But things got too real, too fast, when they were too young to comprehend what it would do to them. The added stress of separation, of distance, of success at different levels and speed. They drifted apart before Nate knew how to hold on.

 

_ I miss the mornings with you laying in my bed _

_ I miss the memories replaying in my head _

_ I miss the thought of a forever, you and me _

_ But all you're missing is my body, oh _

 

They had always been like magnets. Hard to separate. When life did it for them they didn’t know how to deal. Nate had wanted to try. But Jo, beautiful, sparkling, fragile Jo, had become paranoid. 

Didn’t know how to keep up a farce, he said. Had exploded at Nate, after the draft. Had screamed about distance, about youthful mistakes (Nate had laughed, at that, a harsh, bitter sound.  _ We’re still children _ , he said. It made it worse). 

Had called them strangers, the next time they met up, months of radio silence between them for the first time ever since they’d met, became one before they knew how to be themselves. 

Nate learnt to not like a lot of words, in the years after that.  _ Fling. Mistake. Strangers. Child. _ He used to flinch every time he heard them. Now, though. Now he’s numb to them. Unless he hears Jo say them, or just afterwards, when he still feels raw and scraped out. 

 

_ When I wake up all alone _

_ And I'm thinking of your skin _

_ I remember, I remember what you told me _

 

His teammates noticed, of course. Tried asking him, in the beginning. He became spiky, though, barbed like wire. They stopped. Still watched him, even now. Worried and kind. He didn’t know how to ask them to stop caring. Didn’t want to, really. But it  _ hurt. _

 

_ Hurt. _

 

And then Jo got traded to the Avalanche. And everything fell apart.


End file.
